The most popular sports attended by people aged 15 years and over in the 12 months prior to interview were Australian Rules football (16% or 2.8 million), horse racing (11% or 1.9 million), rugby league (9% or 1.6 million) and motor sports (8% or 1.4 million) (Table 3).

Males had a higher attendance rate for the majority of sports. Twice as many males attended motor sports (1.0 million) than females (0.5 million), as was the case for outdoor cricket (0.5 million males compared with 0.2 million females). Other sports which were predominantly attended by males were Australian Rules football (1.7 million males compared with 1.2 million females) and rugby league (1.0 million males compared with 0.6 million females) (Table 3).

Twice as many females, however, attended netball (123,000) compared with males (53,700). Females also had a higher attendance rate at indoor and outdoor tennis (1.9% or 171,000) compared with males (1.4% or 122,000) (Table 3).

SPECTATORS AT SELECTED SPORTING EVENTS(a), By sex

Attendance rates at sporting events varied across the states and territories for the most popular sports. Attendance at Australian Rules football in Victoria was 33% (1.4 million) in Victoria, compared with 4% (0.2 million) in New South Wales. Rugby league reported attendance rates of 17% (600,000) in Queensland, compared with 0.6% (7,300) in South Australia (Table 4).

Of the spectators who attended Australian Rules football in the 12 months prior to interview, 43% attended 1-2 times, 26% attended 3-5 times, and nearly one-third (31%) attended 6 times or more. Whereas for horse racing, attendance was less frequent, with nearly three quarters of spectators only attending 1-2 times (74%) in the 12 months prior to interview, 18% attending 3-5 times and 8% attending 6 times or more (Table 6).